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Windows SuperSite Blog Tries to Explain Mac Fanatics.

[UPDATE:] The original headline was “John Dvorak Writing For Windows SuperSite?”. Reader Scott took me to task for using a headline and premise that substitutes John’s work for Paul’s. His comment struck me, and I realized he was right. My critique of Paul’s post is still 100% valid, but the over-the-top headline and two-sentence opening have been struck. Also, my apologies to both John Dvorak and Paul Thurrott for the mis-characterization.

There’s a new article post on Paul’s SuperSite Blog for Windows attempting to explain Mac fanatics. Since it’s the usual Dvorak drivel I won’t link to it.

Problem is, I don’t see John’s name anywhere on it. Yet it fits his M.O. to a tee, so maybe he’s ghostwriting for Paul Thurrott?

I’m a little surprised Paul took this direction, people don’t pay as much attention to John’s stuff these days. Also, for an article ostensibly about Mac fanatics it spends quite a bit of time telling us how impartial, fair, etc. Paul is. Wonder why he thought that needed explaining?

I tend to call Paul out on his Microsoft biases. Like his claim that Apple releasing a major maintenance patch for Leopard in only three months is somehow “bad”; as opposed to MS taking over a year for an SP1 that still isn’t ready and, as I pointed out, already has problems and will slow down the very system it purports to improve.

Paul’s differing views of these two companies’ major maintenance releases is a great example to seriously question his claim that he’s objective about Apple and Microsoft products.

But why waste time with a Dvorak-style hit piece? Whatsa matter, subscriptions down? Maybe those who read SfW in 2006 and got suckered by Paul’s original Vista review finally had enough.

As for the article itself, it’s a pretty weak (and old) tack to fall back on Artie MacStrawman, but maybe that’s all the ammunition Paul has.

It actually gets worse after the article. Paul states in the comments that Windows fanatics are a myth, almost non-existent, and he’s not sure he ever met one. Oh please. He owes me a new keyboard and monitor from the beverage I spewed upon reading that claim. Why would Windows fanatics reveal themselves to you, Paul? You speak their language! If MacDailyNews claimed there were no Apple fanatics, or they had never met one, would you take that as gospel? It was a dumb comment.

But then again the entire article is silly, and incredible stinky bait. On the plus side, it might be a good example of the maxim “None proclaim their innocence so loudly as the guilty”.

There’s biased opinion — of which Paul has plenty — and there’s trolling. Paul’s latest is an example of the latter, and all the proof one needs to conclude not only that Microsoft has “fanatics” as bad as any Paul decries for Apple, but that some of them have large blogs with wide readerships.

[UPDATE:] Though the piece in question is on the SuperSite for Windows, Paul pointed out that it wasn’t an “article”, but rather a “blog post”. This seemed to matter a lot to Paul, so I made a correction in the opening paragraph. Paul also linked to the post in the comments below.

Thanks for your thoughts. I never thought of it that way. In retrospect, maybe I should have, but I didn’t.

The point of bringing up Dvorak was that the post was out of character for Paul. I disagree with a lot of his stuff, but this particular post (and his later comment) was really way “out there”, in my opinion. That’s what made me think of Dvorak in the first place. It’s not out of character for John, it’s what he used to do all the time.

It was meant to be amusing, not misleading. I did make it clear early on who wrote it. Still, you’ve got me thinking about it and you have a very good point. It’s well taken.

I gotta be honest. Your blog post really should have just addressed your issues with Paul’s article/post/whatever. Making claims about Dvorak was just bizarre and pointless. Not to mention obviously ridiculous.

By the way, agree with them most of the time or not, neither Paul nor John are stupid people. And your blog post indicting John for Paul’s work is really not unlike something you’d get angry and John for. Making sensational statements to gain attention.

Ok, back to using my Mac. Which I love. But it won’t matter, because I’m gonna get slammed as a “thurrot and dvorak lover”.

“I doubt there are many people who’ve actually used OS X for any extended period of time who’ve gone back to Windows.”

Maybe not, but I’m one of them. I got my first Mac in ’89 and used them for 10 years. But from 12/99 until I got my iMac last August I was Windows-only. This was because Apple simply didn’t make any computer hardware I wanted to buy. I still bemoan the lack of a “headless iMac” in Apple’s line-up.

Still, the latest 24″ iMac was enough to fill the bill, and moving forward with Microsoft via Vista did not help the PC side of the argument at all.

First, “It’s not an article, it’s a blog post”. Are you serious? Do you really think such semantic arguments matter? Call it what you want, did you mean what you wrote or didn’t you? Do you stand behind it or don’t you? Sheesh. And in neither case does it free it from being a troll.

How do you feel that I “dissected” your words? A few sentences before you said I could disagree with it, which I did. Are all disagreements “dissection”? Sounds to me like you just don’t take criticism well.

My post was very adult. Succinct. To the point. Maybe even a shade humorous. And I posted it publicly on my very own blog. And when you criticized it I didn’t try to change the subject by calling it an article, or post, or story, or summary, or analysis, etc. You certainly had no trouble understanding it. So what’s the problem?

I noticed that nowhere in your reply did you address any of my points. In fact, the reply was the same don’t-take-my-stuff-so-seriously “argument” you left on my blog the last time you visited. I said it then, and I’ll say it now: You’re welcome here any time, but please bring more than a thesaurus and 20-year old Mac “arguments” to the discussion.

The bottom line is this:

– As long as you apply one set of criteria to Apple and another to Microsoft.
– As long as you clearly keep close ties to Redmond.
– And as long as you run a site called “Windows SuperSite”, for cryin’ out loud,

You are going to be pegged by honest objective observers as biased towards Microsoft. Period. That you actually waste words trying not only to deny it, but to paint all the “fanatics” on the other side, tends to show that it is you not being the adult, or at the very least not a realistic one.

@Paul,
How can we freely discuss it when you moderate the comments? Tom is not the only blogger who calls you out. Yet I rarely see the kind of in-depth analysis that, say, Daniel Dilger provides on any of your sites. And I am not talking about reviews of products. Anyone can do that. It’s the flippant comments you make without any proof or data to substantiate your writing. As if you are all-knowing and your readers are just supposed to lap it up.

You need to get a grip that MSFT does not rule the tech world anymore, they don’t innovate and they are the worst technology company in the consumer realm by far. And feel free to let us know who pays your bills. That should be provided up front before you go “reviewing” any products. I don’t see any ads on Tom or Daniel’s sites. In other words, they aren’t being bought to say what they write.

First, it’s not an article. It’s a blog post. It’s not linked to from the front page of the SuperSite because, well, it’s a blog post.

So it’s not a troll. Unlike, say, your own post here. Indeed, there’s no advertising on the blog or whatever. I didn’t submit it anywhere or whatever. I just read something, thought it was interesting, and wrote about it. Disagree or agree. Just don’t be a jerk about it.

Oh, no, back on Thurrott already. I wish MacSurfer would stop linking to you. I find myself compelled to click the link to see how he’s annoyed you now.

FWIW, I don’t actually believe there are many “Windows fanatics” and I certainly don’t believe Thurrott is one. It’s a mercenary thing: he just knows which side his bread is buttered.

I think it’s actually telling that some people _do_ get “fanatic” about the Mac, but people _generally_ don’t about Windows. Many Mac users love their machines; most Windows users tolerate theirs. Just listen to the things most say. Remember when Apple ran the Switch campaign? They found ordinary users with stories of how and why they’d switched. Microsoft ran a counter-campaign. And guess what? **They didn’t come up with any real people**. It turned out their “switcher” was a stock photo and “her story” was copy written by a advertising woman – and here it gets really funny – on her Mac. No Ellen Feiss for the Beast of Redmond.

People love Apple stuff because it’s attractive, highly usable, and well-designed (at least from an aesthetic point of view) from the case to the GUI. I doubt there are many people who’ve actually used OS X for any extended period of time who’ve gone back to Windows. The gap is just too large, embarrassingly large. I use Windows for a few things, but I’m reminded of that gap every time I boot it.

Now if you’re the sort of massive-brained geek who lives at the command line, then you don’t care about the GUI, and you might as well eschew OS X for Linux or BSD … because, truth be told, OS X has some rather embarrassing underwear and your data will probably be a bit safer on ext3 or ReiserFS. (No-one on Linux “swears by” any $100 package equivalent to Alsoft’s ruinously expensive Disk Warrior that so many Mac users say they “swear by” – nor needs such a thing.) Hence Linus Torvalds recent forthright remark about Apple’s filesystem. There’s an amusing tongue-in-cheek article about that here:

But, if like most ordinary users, you work in the GUI, then OS X is the most pleasant and rewarding environment bar none. No other desktop OS comes close. And this is why people get to love their Macs – and unfortunately sometimes do take it all too far, resenting even _valid_ criticism of any aspect of the Mac (even though they stand to gain by problems being highlighted, so that they’re dealt with).

But NO-ONE loves Windows, no even its mother. Well, OK, a few misguided souls are “loyal” to it – although why be loyal to an OS? – and Paul caters to those people. But to Paul himself it’s all just a job. And his job is misrepresenting both Microsoft and its competitors. Note the way I phrased that: it’s not just Apple he maligns. For example, recall his hysterical “You could use Google’s services in the commission of a crime” post. There was a strange failure to mention you could also use Microsoft’s in the very same way. He uses the same tactics with Google that he does with Apple: he says he himself is a user Google’s services. He thinks his readers are naive enough to credit him with impartiality just for that.

Truth is Google doesn’t always get things right. He’s a very good critique of Gmail’s horrendous IMAP service:

Like everyone else they have their faults. But Google also deserve a lot of praise and – at least compared to other companies I won’t mention – they do (mostly) live up to their claim not to be “evil”.

I agree with your position that a Paul Thurrott article is usually not worth linking to. Along that line, you have to wonder about a person that claims not to be biased whose site is called “SuperSite for Windows”. This same site has links to “Windows Vista”, “Xbox” and “Zune” products only. Does Paul have a similar Mac site? How about a Linux site? No?

Really, the iPod is certainly more relevant to the Windows platform than the Zune is. Yet, Paul goes out of his way time and time again trying to convince others that he’s not biased. The non-bias in this claim seems to boil down to an occasional bad review of a Microsoft product. Unfortunately, when he does this, it’s so overwhelmingly obvious that he’s hardly taking a real stand against Microsoft. Similarly, the few times he’s positive about Apple, it’s usually in the form of a back handed compliment or he acknowledges something the rest of the world has already made clear (i.e. the iPod is good), etc.

The thing is, it’s okay to have a bias. To some degree, we all have some level of biases based on our own personal experiences. That’s only human. I just find it amusing how hard Paul tries to pretend he doesn’t have a strong Microsoft bias. Paul, thou doest protest too much! The more he tries to convince everyone otherwise, the more his bias becomes clear.

==The thing is though Paul Thurrot IS the same as Dvorak and most times Enderle==

Man, you cover exactly what I want to say and have said on another Mac site recently. These guys are a troika of drivel and I wish all Mac bloggers would ignore them. Do not speak the three names of evil.

==say things to get hits==

I’m sure that’s part of it, but I am also sure they believe what they say. Perhaps they think they are part of a “garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths”?

>>The thing is though Paul Thurrot IS the same as Dvorak and most times Enderle<>say things to get hits<<

I’m sure that’s part of it, but I am also sure they believe what they say. Perhaps they think they are part of a “garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths”?

The thing is though Paul Thurrot IS the same as Dvorak and most times Enderle – as time has progressed their bias “say things to get hits” articles are getting noticed by more and more blogs as bogus and since more and more mainstream press is paying more and more attention to blogs – they are beginning to be marginilized.

Remember, Dvorak was a pioneer in riling the Mac Community – only recently did he admit that this is exactly what he’s been doing all these years!